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The Watering Hole, Tuesday July 21, 2015

As a tip of the hat to the Republican mascot, he places a Waco Texas wooly mammoth site on the list of National Monuments, while at the same time giving the finger to those who think the earth is only 8,000 years old.

57 thoughts on “The Watering Hole, Tuesday July 21, 2015”

It’s an interesting concept to imagine what a fine place this nation would have become, if only there were no Republicans! I sure wish we could fully understand and comprehend the neurological malfunction — probably genetic — that allows greed, hate, fear, and power quest to reach the point where a severe and dangerous right wing politic, aka fascism, finds the means to control (so far) at least 50% of a given population. It’s interesting to imagine a progressive world where

. . . all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. –That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes . . .

Nonewhere – the Creationists would get past your flawless logic simply thus – “Just stick a Jesus up there on top of the mammoth, a-riding him into the Ark, hooting and a hollering – praise Gawd! Don’t need no evolution.”

Late last year, as MSNBC bled primetime viewers, network chief Phil Griffin openly sought to “broaden” the channel’s coverage, away from progressive commentary-heavy talk shows and back to human interest stories and hard news. Since then, multiple shows have been cancelled and jobs have been called into question.

Mediaite has learned that an MSNBC Town Hall meeting is scheduled for July 23 with returning NBC News president Andy Lack, and that many staffers are, quote, “freaking out.” Why? Well, because the struggling cable net has to figure out how to overhaul its programming following two of its worst quarterly performances in recent memory.

According to multiple sources within the network, the biggest rumor to emerge is that MSNBC has engaged in talks with soon-to-be-departed ESPN2 host Keith Olbermann about returning to the cable network’s primetime lineup. Olbermann previously hosted Countdown from 2003 until 2011, and was an immensely controversial figure for the network, both internally and externally (2003 was a return to the network for Olbermann after a previously contentious run in the ’90s as well). For myriad reasons, it would be a stunning turn of events if Olbermann came back, but one could certainly argue that right now they need each other more than ever.

But even a theoretical Olbermann return could suggest MSNBC’s desire to get back into the fiery primetime wars, and also highlights the reality that several other shows are likely on the chopping block.

There are three niches in cable news: The RWNJ niche, for Fox viewers; the disaster/crime niche, for the CNN news grazers; and the would-be left wing niche, if Comcast decides to put profit over their corporatist ideology. They can never beat Fox, for their niche, or CNN, for their foul-weather viewers, who don’t even know MSNBC exists. Therefore, they only have one niche to fill, and that is to program in order to attract the left wing viewers who would still watch cable TV news, as long as it covers news these viewers want to see.

If that was really the case, Andy Hallinan would melt down every gun in the place and start selling something cool. Ice cream maybe. Apparently, though, he’s too stupid to realize that the only purpose of every fucking gun that’s ever been made is to “do harm” to someone or something. They serve NO other purpose. Period.

Amen to that. Anytime gov’t opens the door to paying someone else a profitable sum to do what gov’t oughtta be doing, the whole project immediately turns upside down and way too many of “we people” get way too screwed in way too many ways.

The Confederate Battle Flag may have cost two men their jobs. They claim they were fired from Turner Industries this week for refusing to remove the flag from their vehicles.

Phillip Sims tells us he doesn’t normally drive to work with the Confederate Battle Flag on his truck. But he says he was running late on Monday, and didn’t take the time to remove it.

Sims says the plant superintendent called him outside for a talk. He says the manager said, “Hey, we like your work here and we like you, but your flag, it’s gonna have to go. He said I hate to be the one to tell you that but if you don’t I’m gonna have to fire you.”

He says the company has called him three times since Monday morning offering to rehire him if he’d just take the flag off his truck. But now, Sims says it has just gone too far and he stands by his actions. “I’m unemployed now but I still feel that I made the right decision,” says Sims.

Decatur is about 20 miles west of me. He might get away with this in a small company, but the larger places aren’t going to tolerate it.

There just ain’t no pleasing some folks. Two Democrats, both of them running to the left of Hillary Clinton, take the stage at the four-day Netroots Nation conference, touted as the largest annual gathering of liberal activists from all over the country. Then members of the assembled rabble proceed to take over the proceedings, seemingly ready to make the two the First Up Against The Wall When The Revolution Comes.

Martin O’Malley, who until Baltimore exploded was thought to have used liberal policies to improve race relations and reduce crime there as its mayor, and Bernie Sanders, self-proclaimed socialist who’s too far to the left to have a “D” after his name, were treated by the mob like members of the Establishment.

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Then there is the real question the incident raises: how come the first black president, in six and a half years, with two black attorneys general at his side, hasn’t convinced such liberal mobs that he’s even begun to dismantle structural racism?

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If the Netroots mob thinks Obama is a sellout, why didn’t they ask O’Malley to promise he wasn’t going to be another Obama? Or if they think Obama is mostly a success, why didn’t they demand he continue Obama’s work?

O’Malley and Bernie weren’t treated like members of ‘The Establishment’, they were treated like they walked in together carrying Confederate flags, and singing Dixie.